Today, we had a low-key family celebration in honor of James’s first birthday, and boy, did he LOVE it! Aunt Lou made a giraffe cake for all of the adults to eat (I know, right? A giraffe cake!!! AND it tasted amazing, with its salted-caramel frosting over dark chocolatey deliciousness…I may or may not be eating my third slice of the day, even as I type this…), and I made a miniature layer cake for him to smash/eat. Not surprisingly, he is a cake fan. I was holding the cake, so I don’t have pictures of that part, yet; I’ll post them when they arrive in my email inbox.

James received some fun toys (thank you, everyone!) and basically had a one-year-old’s equivalent of a trip to Six Flags. Oh, man. We are going to have FUN with this stuff in the months to come! He wanted to play with everything rightthisveryminute.

So, especially for our family members who couldn’t make it, here are some pictures from the party:

Party table :)

Not the whole invitation, but I thought it’d be best to crop out our address! Ha.

Isn’t this the most amazing cake?! It tasted just as good as it looked, too.

Mama-baby snuggle moment

The first of many fun toys…

…aaaaaaand here’s where he got all tired out from the Six Flags in our living room. Looks like a good place for a nap to me.

Birthday boy with Mimi and Pop…

…and Dede…

…and Aunt Lou + Uncle CoCo. (They look good with a baby, right?) ;)

More cake and party hat pictures to come, when I have them, but for now: this mama is TIRED. And to our wonderful family—we loved getting to see and talk to you all today. Thank you for the calls and visits, and for thinking of James on his birthday. He’s not old enough to appreciate it yet, but we sure do, and we’re so grateful for family like you. Much love. ❤

Well, here we are—how has it already been a year? While in many ways this has been the most challenging year of our lives, it has also been the sweetest. What a blessing Jamesbaby is. We love his smile and his laugh and his eyes and his curiosity and even the way he gets into every single thing. We love that he loves books, kitties, giraffes, and (weirdly) the microwave. We love that he gets the cutest little sadface when the cats fight, and when other babies cry—we hope this means he’ll grow into a kind, empathetic little guy. It’s been a year of less sleep than we’d like, more responsibility than we’ve ever known, and lots (and LOTS AND LOTS) of prayer. James is more than worth it.

Though the year passed quickly, we are assured by how much he’s grown that an entire year did actually pass—check out the first Harry Potter picture, compared with the one from this afternoon!

One month old James + Harry Potter

Also, look how he’s almost grown out of his car seat! Wow. The warning label on the left side of the picture is a good indicator of how much he’s grown.

Two days old, ready to leave the hospital!

He’s grown so much! We’re upgrading to a big boy carseat tomorrow.

There were so many pictures from the birthday party, I made a separate post for it—click here to see it.

Thank you, everyone, for all the support and prayers and park dates and trail walks and dinners and Twitter conversations and babysitting you’ve offered this year. We are blessed to know you. :)

The past few weeks have been crazy, due to our spontaneous move to a new apartment and a trip to Kansas City for Andrew’s parents’ 40th anniversary, so it’s taken a little while to catch our breath. Hence the lateness.

Of course, sweet baby James hasn’t stopped growing throughout all of that. It’s getting harder and harder to keep him still for these photos! Here’s the best one we could get (ha):

And here are some more cute ones from July:

This little smile was so refreshing during our stressful moving week!

James had so much fun splashing around in this little bucket! He also said his first real word: “Duck!”

He’s been pulling up on EVERYTHING and cruising like crazy—such a big boy!

James loves books—just like his Mama. :)

This little guy is so much fun to be around. We can’t believe he’s almost a whole year old!

So tall! This was, hands down, THE squirmiest photo shoot we’ve had yet. And Harry Potter nearly lost an eye.

It’s that time again—ALREADY. Hello, July. Hello, ten entire months, which means James’s first birthday is only TWO months away. Seriously, how did that happen? Oh, yeah. Things are busy when you have a little baby.

So, busy month. As I scrolled through this month’s pictures, I realized—with the exception of pictures from a trip to my parents’ house—they were mostly of the same two things: eating and playing with toys. Not surprising, since that’s basically what this month was made of—LOTS more solid food, and a baby who is increasingly curious about the world (and, therefore, a baby who is constantly getting into everything). He’s crawling at the speed of lightning, pulling himself up and cruising along chairs, walls, the coffee table, our piano (?!)…and anything else he can get his little hands on. Needless to say, my hands have been mostly full of him, not full of my camera. Ha.

I imagine it will never get old to watch our baby learn things. He waves “bye bye” now—and *sometimes* says it, too. He’s eating a ton (how big IS that stomach?) and is starting to be quite obvious about what he likes (“Yum yum!”) and what he hates (the most hilariously disgusted face I’ve ever seen). He’s also starting to learn how to stand without help, but that only lasts about two seconds before he either falls or grabs back on for support. Aaaaand I imagine it’s only a matter of time before we’re full-on chasing him around the room.

So…that’s been our month. Hope you’re all doing well, too!

Sweet baby.

James walked on grass for the first time (with Pop’s help)!

We have a little climber on our hands. He climbs anything that will hold him—especially Andrew and me. More than once, he’s even climbed all the way up to the top of our staircase! Don’t worry, though, they were supervised endeavors. Andrew shadowed him the entire way.

James put himself in rocking chair baby jail the other day, haha. (Apparently, he likes to crawl *under* things in addition to climbing *over* them.)

Nine months in, nine months out—how did our little baby get to be such a big boy? This was another eventful month! Jamesbaby is zooming around everywhere, crawling and pulling up and getting into everything. It’s awesome. We also love hearing his little voice, all the ma-ma-ma-mas and da-da-da-das and keeeeeeeeees!!! (That last one is Jamesbabyspeak for KITTYCATRIGHTTHEREINFRONTOFMEIWANTIT!!!!) He’s sweet and fun and curious, and we are so grateful we get to be his parents. ♥

Sweet little face.

James loves to bang on play the piano.

Someone figured out how to get the diapers out of the box…

…and how to feed himself egg yolk! (Note Raffey, the giraffe, who goes EVERYWHERE with James these days.)

James is always excited to spend time with Daddy (and Lamby)…

…and he LOVES it when Mimi and Pop come to visit!

We love spending our days with this sweet, smiley baby.

How did he get so big? He looks more and more like a little toddler boy every day.

This has been a big month for our Jamesbaby! It seems like he’s learning something new every day, lately. He’s crawling like crazy—not just army crawling anymore, but actual on-all-fours crawling! This is fun, but it keeps us on our toes. We’re learning how to babyproof things…turns out laptop cables, sharp-cornered toy boxes, shoes, guitars, and the cats are all quite appealing to our curious little baby. Whee!

I'm eight months old! Thank you for my dinosaur shirt, Mimi!

Every week, we get to go walking with Liam and Pascal, our baby friends from church. What sweet dads, to take care of them during the Easter Sunday church service!

Sometimes we see the ducks while we're at the walking trail.

James saw fish for the first time when we visited the Children's Museum!

James loves his Uncle CoCo :)

"Look at all these teeth!" James now has two on the bottom and two on the top, though you can't see the top ones so easily in this picture.

Crawling…

…pushing up to standing…

…and finding his book! When it's nap time, I say, "Can you find your 'Curious George and the Bunny' book?" And then, he reaches over and pulls it off the windowsill!